3. As APSATS Coaches, we “subscribe to a developing treatment model that acknowledges and responds to the traumatic stress” found in women betrayed by their intimate partner – they’re husband, ex-husband, or boyfriend.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery Professionals Are Well Trained & Experienced

4. To be eligible for APSATS training, each of our coaches first trained and certified as a professional life coach by an institution accredited by the International Coach Federation (ICF).

5. In addition to our primary coach training, we’ve also obtained additional education in related areas of specialization. For example, I’m also a certified couples relationship coach and certified divorce recovery coach. Likewise, Betrayal Trauma Recovery has trained all our coaches in how to detect and establish safety in the wake of emotional abuse.

What Does It Take To Become APSATS Trained To Coach Betrayal Trauma Survivors?

6. APSATS training is an intensive and interactive program, conducted by Dr. Barbara Steffens, president of APSATS and co-author of Your Sexually Addicted Spouse. Other trainers include experts in the field of Betrayal Trauma, such as Dr. Janice Caudill, Richard Blankenship, Ella Hutchinson, Dan Drake and Dorit Reichental.

7. Following our APSATS training, each of us enrolled into the Certified Partner Coach (CPC) Candidate program, a one to two year process that requires 125+ hours of partner coaching, 30+ hours of supervisory consultation, multiple letters of recommendations from peers and supervisors, and a written client case study. Several of our BTR coaches have completed the entire CPC process, while others are actively working toward that advanced designation.

8. APSATS coaches are trained to operate exclusively within the scope of our training and certifications. We’re taught how to recognize cues that suggest our clients might need therapeutic intervention or need a different kind of support than we’re qualified to provide. We maintain an active referral network of other trauma-sensitive professionals, colleagues to whom we can refer our clients as needed.

9. APSATS coaches are trained to understand the neurobiological aspects of intimate partner abuse. We’re also trained to recognize the differences between PTSD and complex trauma, or C-PTSD.

How Do The BTR APSATS Coaches Help Women Who Are Affected By Abuse?

10. APSATS coaches are trained to help clients identify other health and wellness issues that are or may become increasingly serious (depression, anxiety, insomnia, etc.), encouraging them to seek appropriate treatment when indicated.

11. APSATS coaches are trained to assess when and how couples therapy or couples coaching might benefit our clients, neither engaging it prematurely nor deferring it indefinitely against their wishes.

12. APSATS coaches are trained to support clients through some of the most painful or challenging milestones of the recovery process: STD testing, separation, therapeutic disclosures, polygraphs, family reunification, re-engaging in sex, relapse preparedness, public exposure, legal consequences, emotional impact, etc.

13. APSATS coaches are trained to collaborate professionally with other members of a client’s care team. This includes interacting with (if applicable) her therapist, his therapist, the couple’s therapist, medical doctors, clergy, counselors, even mediators or legal representatives.

How Is An ASPATS Coach Different From Other Types of Coaching Or Therapy?

14. APSATS coaches are trained to help our clients avoid (if possible) or heal from the damage of treatment induced trauma. Treatment induced trauma refers to occasions when a client reaches out to a therapist, coach, church leader, support group, or other kind of helping professional — but instead receives more HARM than help from that individual.

Regretfully, treatment induced trauma is a huge problem when it comes to betrayal trauma, and that’s why APSATS coaches learn to carefully and sensitively counteract it.

APSATS coaches are trained to help women secure safety for themselves, through critical key processes. This includes areas like education about abuse, addiction, gaslighting, boundaries, triggers and trauma; deepening capacity for self-care, self-compassion and self-advocacy; techniques to improve mindfulness and self-soothing; and access to peer-support resources.

We’re also trained to help our clients identify their needs, prioritize their values, resolve values conflicts, set reasonable recovery goals and make decisions regarding the health of their relationships.

What Model Do APSATS Coaches Use To Help Women Heal?

15. As APSATS coaches, we’ve learned to utilize Dr. Barbara Steffens’ signature Multidimensional Partner Trauma Model (MPT-M), a brilliant foundational framework from which we typically coach our clients. The MPT-M is based upon Dr. Judith Herman’s three phase model for trauma resolution, and it highlights three distinct stages of trauma response experienced by abuse victims:

Respond to the shock of their discovery, establish safety and stabilization.

Respond to the grief of their reality, remember, mourn, process, integrate and build a context for this new reality.

Seek reconnection with themselves and others. Re-engage life in an expansive capacity, fueled by the realization of post-traumatic growth.

Speaking on behalf of our BTR coaching team, we (as a sisterhood) live, breathe and celebrate this partner trauma model. It represents the heart and soul of our collective, partner-sensitive vision and practice.

Speaking for myself, I’ve been around awhile (15 years of personal and professional work within this field), so I REMEMBER what the sex addiction recovery world was like before Dr. Steffens co-wrote her game-changing book. I remember the kind of help that was (and wasn’t) available then, before she began training coaches and therapists to recognize and treat betrayal trauma.

In other words, I remember this field before there was a high quality, victim sensitive, worldwide standard of care for women like me. When I say that Dr. Steffens rescued my life with this model, I’m not exaggerating.

During these past 15 years, I haven’t encountered one single tool that’s been more practical, more powerful or made more of a difference for victims of abuse than the MPT-M. I love this model so much, in fact, that I refer to it as “the crown jewel” of my professional tool kit. It’s that special. It’s that significant. And it’s that gift we’re eager to share with YOU, as you too recover from betrayal trauma!

BTR is passionately committed to providing APSATS services to provide solid, trauma-sensitive support for your journey.

Not Sure How to Get Started?

This video will help you get started with your Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

What steps do I need to take, to become a betrayal trauma recovery coach? I am not a therapist. I do have personal experience of betrayal trauma and it’s effects. I want to encourage others working through their recovery.

All of our coaches are certified coaches through an organization accredited by ICF or BCC, have been trained by APSATS, and are either certified by APSATS or working toward full certification under an APSATS supervisor.

Thank you so much for all you do. Organizations like yours have been invaluable in my healing process so far. I hope that I will eventually be able to give back by becoming a coach. As my husband continues in his recovery, we have talked about using what we are learning through our process to help others as we see it everyday, all around us.